I guess as long as there have been watermelons, there have been watermelon thieves. Our community garden seems to attract folks that feel the gardeners are working to provide them vegetables. That is not the case and there are three large signs in the garden that ask for respect of the hard work that goes into growing these crops. Fortunately, most visitors to the garden do not harvest anything without permission.

  If you are hungry, just let us know and we will share. Many times our surplus goes to the local food pantries. We can also direct you there. If you would like to sign up to have a plot for yourself, just let us know.

  I guess the biggest problem I have with this is the fact that if you are going to steal a watermelon you need to know when they are ripe. We are missing six nice looking watermelons that were far from being ripe. What we have here are amateur watermelon thieves. Since watermelons don’t ripen off the vine, they stole something that has no value. They are truly a disgrace to the Society of Watermelon Thieves. In an effort to help with this educational deficiency I thought I would share a few tips on how to tell when a watermelon is ripe.

  Unlike cantaloupe, that become detached from the vine and smell ripe, watermelons are a little more deceptive. There are many signs to help determine if the melon is ripe:

• The color on the bottom changes from white to light yellow.
• The tendrils on the vine nearest the fruit wilt. (The curly fingers on the vine that attach to things)
• The watermelon loses its shine and becomes duller looking.
• On some varieties the green bands begin to break up and become less distinguishable as they approach the blossom end.
• Ribbed indentions that you can feel with your fingers occur on the elongated body.

  Some folks count the days from first blossom, some check size, while others press on them to see if they give. Some may even cut a small triangle shaped plug to check for ripeness.

  As for me, I am a thumper. Thumping requires a little practice. You have to detect that hollow sound that says get the salt. Thumping is like playing a musical instrument and once you learn to hear the internal echo of a ripe watermelon, there is no sweeter sound. Maybe we should have a watermelon thumping class. The problem is, at the rate we are going we will not have any ripe melons to practice with. They disappear before they ripen. At any rate, we are going to keep trying to grow them in hopes that someday we might get to keep one.

  In the meantime I hope this will be helpful when you are selecting a watermelon to steal. For the rest of us it may be helpful when selecting one from our garden or from the market.